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Fandoms. Communities.

So what the heck is a community anyhow?

Is it the communal interest? The love of the products that we consume? Or is it something more?

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But how are communities different from fandoms?

Well, it can be hard to tell, the respective terms have so much overlap it can be easy to confuse the two, especially when looking at Rooster Teeth. Both groups have laid claim to Rooster Teeth’s virtual space and as the definitions in our lexicon of what it means to be part of a fandom or a community has grown and changed and as members of this vast group of consumers, it can be hard to say where you land.

Are we fans? Yes.

Are we a community? Most definitely.

Can you be both? Are you both? How do you define yourself?

From the fandom that originated almost 16 years ago, we’ve become so much more. We’ve become a community, a family even, a place to call home. Every year since 2011, thousands of us have made the journey to the proverbial mecca known as RTX. We gather in shock and awe and celebrate the sense of belonging and acceptance, telling ourselves that these are our PEOPLE!!

But it didn’t start there, it’s been a winding journey to where we are today and not always directed by the hardworking staff who produce the content and experiences we cherish so much. We have grown over the years to become over 3,367,970 (at the time of this writing) members strong on site with so many more on YouTube, Facebook, and other social media outlets; and while the fandom of all things Rooster Teeth is impressive, at the core is an intensely passionate group of members who call themselves a part of the Rooster Teeth community.

You. Us.

We’ve taken an interest not just in the products but each other. For us, a community is a fandom taken to the next level. We engage with the products, the producers of the content we love so much, follow the updates and demand the highest respect to what is offered to us. But we also want to see the things we love taken to the next level, and with that community is born. We are not satisfied to sit quietly and absorb the generous offerings on the proverbial table alone. We want more.

It only seems natural then that we turn to each other. Communal interests only can hold us for so long; after all, what good is watching a show, playing a game or participating in an event (either online or in real life) if you don’t have someone you know to share that same passion?

(And so many more!)

Communities are elusive, wild things that grow sometimes quietly, sometimes loudly, but very rarely within the projected or defined parameters of any marketing team, or founder intentions. Quick to reject things they dislike, and quicker to embrace things that they are passionate about, it can be a whirlwind experience for those looking from the outside in. It can be difficult to find a way to engage with others, to feel accepted for who you are, but a true community can offer not only the sense of belonging and family but, in some cases, create new families.

It makes sense then that as we’ve found ourselves drawn in more and more over the years, first by the content that makes us laugh and then to the willing openness of the staff. Time and again they have reminded us what it is to take a leap of faith and to put it all out there-- hoping that someone else will pipe up and say “I relate!” that we find ourselves searching out the nervous but welcoming smiles of those RT Community members we’ve found in the wild. We identify ourselves by proudly wearing merchandise that often times still feels like an inside joke and loudly squealing with delight when we’ve found someone new to introduce to the content and people who have shaped our lives so much.

We’ve declared ourselves more than a fandom, we’ve taken on the initiative and risked ourselves to find more than just a random comment we agree with, we’ve pushed for friendships and more connections. We’ve ignited new passions in others, pushed each other to succeed, raised money for charity, and created events to showcase ourselves.

We do what we can to take care of our own, from showing newbies around to starting up our local groups and growing our circles wider, and the relationships that have formed here have been cited time and again as an integral component to the magic of this company.

And we don’t want it to stop. EVER.

So, how did you get involved in the community? How *can* you get involved in the community if you never have before? How do you create a community?

There are plenty of answers to these questions and it would take a whole series of posts to possibly scratch the surface.

Hang on.... we’re being told that we actually have something like that planned.

Really? There is an entire series planned?

Aaaaand it’s all about how people have become involved in the community?!

Including tips, advice and pumas personal stories from admins and members of regional groups, online specialty groups and more?

Daaaaang!!

Ok!

So stay tuned as we bring you our new limited series, coming to you fresh weekly:

How To: The Rooster Teeth Community Edition

As always, written for and by the community.

We love you.

*We thank all of our members and communities who have helped us by sharing their pictures, time and words on this project*

I haven't really spoken much about how the tournament came to be and things so I thought I'd do a quick journal that will probably be very rambling and uninformative so yeah, you've been warned!

The tournament was a random idea that popped into my head at some point over the RTX London weekend. I dismissed it and it wasn't until I was ranking Bond themes randomly one morning that the idea returned. I started to build a bracket just for fun and the more I looked at it the more I liked the idea. I grabbed all the songs and made a few decisions like putting the Volume themes at the top of the seeding and having the trailer songs in the preliminary round but the rest was random.

I was worried that RT Radio wouldn't get the engagement needed for a tournament like this to work. If you just get a few votes it's pointless so I needed to make sure it was out there in the RT Community and the wider RWBY stratosphere. This is where RT World were amazing. I made the announcement video and tweet and they did their thing and spread it far and wide. It was exactly the boost needed before the tournament started and I was fairly confident we'd get some decent engagement in it and I was blown away by the response. It's a passionate community and I was worried about possible negative attention being sent our way but I was relieved when there was basically none. It meant I could concentrate on the tournament and engaging positively with a much more active twitter account.

I try to keep as neutral as possible with votes. RT Radio twitter, of course, never supported one song over the over but I also tried to be careful with my own Twitter not to push the vote in any way. I voted of course but I decided it was best not to campaign for certain songs like others did. The biggest of course was 'BMBLB'. I knew that had the potential to decimate all if the Bees got involved and I was right to a certain extent. In its first round matchup it went up against Caffeine at won easily but it was the amount of votes that was interesting. Over 400 votes happened in that matchup, most had between 120 and 140. It didn't happen again in Round 2 but it was interesting to see the engagement on that Round 1 matchup with lots of Bumblebee shippers calling on fellow bees to vote. Of course, there were songs that I wanted to see go through that didn't but I know not everyone has the same connection to certain songs like I do. It was occasionally hard not to get really pissed off at it, like how could 'Wings' go out in Round 1?!

Anyway, the whole tournament was an amazing few weeks and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I might have become slightly malevolent with some of the GIFs I was using towards the end but it was all in good fun. I'm looking forward to doing another RWBY tournament before Vol. 7 but before that I have a Disney tournament to start planning...

Well, I did a dumb, and forgot to make a RT journal yesterday. The reason that's important is that this weekend my group, the Bottom Shelf Nerds, are doing our 24 hours of gaming for Extra Life! We're streaming right now at: https://www.twitch.tv/bottomshelfnerds! We'll be live until 9 pm CST, and then again from 9 am to 9 pm CST tomorrow as well. Got a full slate of games including Fallout 76, Rainbow Six: Siege, Dead by Daylight, and Ultimate Chicken Horse!

And aside from the games and the guests, you can also get some pretty nerd swag for your wall with your donations!

A $5 donation at http://bit.ly/BSNerd gets you one entry for any of the above pieces.Entries stack without limit, so $10 is two entries, $20 is four entries, etc. You can split them across pieces too, though there is a one win limit per person when we draw the raffles. Just be sure to leave a message when you donate (there's a 'leave a message' option when donating you need to click), and we'll get your name on the list!

Congratulations to the Good Guy Gamers for raising over $1,000 for Extra Life this weekend, and being engaging the whole stream. They’d planned it out well, and there was a lot going on, and it all seemed like a jolly good time!

And, that’s more raised for the kids! Excellent!

This weekend has been relaxing, I kind of fell out of wanting to play games this afternoon, but I’ve been reading, researching things, and sorting myself out a little bit. I even took the dog on a decent walk.

I don’t know what to expect from the week ahead, but I’d very much like to get my apartment stuff complete, and I’m hoping that there is progress made all the way through the week, it certainly seems like a good week for it. At work I was supposed to be hosting a big meeting tomorrow, but it’s been postponed until Wednesday, so I’ve had a little more time to prepare.

There was a post on the long distance subreddit yesterday that was very encouraging, where people were talking about their immigration timelines, and it’s reminded me that everything is moving, even if we aren’t seeing any visible progress. It also was clear from the post that once the process moves onto the next stage, everything speeds up significantly, which was refreshing to hear, as we have been waiting to hear for just shy of 5 months now. I’m encouraged, but it’s still out of my hands for the time being.

So I've been doing NaNoWriMo which means the part of my brain that does word stuff is mostly fried. I'm dipping in to doing a fitness journal today because I have a specific thought, though. So a lot of people who are already a good distance into their fitness journey, especially up here in the Northeast where it's cold, tend to use winter as a "bulking season," where they try to pack on muscle. One reasoning for it is that they'll be eating extra anyway, and up here we're all in layer upon layer of jackets, so we may as well try to gain some mass and strength.

But this year I have a bit more aggressive of a weight loss goal than usual so I'm not doing that. Also, people who are still pretty new, or whose weight loss is related to specific health concerns, might not want to go back to gaining weight, even if that is mostly muscular weight. The holidays are still a-comin', though, and there will be days where you have access to a boatload of food, most of it not what would typically fall into a balanced and healthy diet (looking at you, chocolate cream pie and eggnog). Unless you have the supernatural willpower to take nothing but a single slice of turkey breast and some salad (I sure as shit don't) then you're going to have to address it.

My way of getting around it is the same way I get around every fitness stumbling block: "Don't commit to mistakes." Or more accurately, "don't commit to a negative." I think of it the same way as any cheat day, planned or unplanned. It happened, I ate more than I should of things I normally don't eat, time to move on. So here's my specific plan for myself, feel free to give it a try!

Step one: Get your workout in! Since you'll be loading up on calories, a super-hard workout with big compounds like squat or deadlift is a great way to not only burn some calories beforehand, it'll also make sure you need energy to recover, allow you to recover more easily and boost your appetite to really help you enjoy your cheat meal!

Step two: Acknowledge it is a cheat meal. I normally take mine on Sundays, but this time it's going to be Thursday. Every other day this week (including the Sunday!) is going to be super clean eating as usual, or even more aggressive than I normally do it.

Step three: leftovers! I'm not going to take any home with me since I do have my own pre-made meals from my mealprep, but if you don't mealprep and you do want to take leftovers home with you (or you'e hosting and you have no choice but to deal with them) try to make the best use of portion control you can and try to keep them within your calorie parameters.

Step four: Look, this one is the most important. Let's say you can't quite get any of the three steps above, what do you do? Don't commit to the mistake! Basically, don't give up just because you had a week of too many cheat meals and missed workouts! Once Cyber Monday rolls around get yourself back on track and leave it all behind!

Hope you all have an awesome feast day, whatever the context of it is for you! Okay, on to my NaNo work again!

borisof007FIRST Member Star(s)Indication of membership status - One star is a FIRST member, two stars is Double Gold HR Manager, Engineering

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Not every day in my life have I been given an opportunity to provide for someone else. Most of my life has been trying to take care of myself alongside someone similarly likeminded. With my gf on disability from mental stress, she's been given the gift of free time.

She's been thinking heavily on what to do with her time. She'd been thinking a lot about going back to school but wasn't sure when exactly or what she'd be studying. She knew she was really close to completing an AA but just never finished...

Well I'm excited to say that she's officially enrolled into school for this next Semester in the Spring and if she's lucky she'll be able to register for all 3 classes she needs to get her degree!

I'm really happy that I was able to give her that opportunity. Some might ask why I don't do the same thing for myself and the answer to that is a bit more complicated. Were I in her shoes, yes I would totally take that opportunity. However she can't make nearly the same amount of money that I do to support me going to school. When she was working, she was making about 1/4 of what I do.

But I'm not looking at that. All I can see is how happy I've made the love of my life to be able for her to finish something she wanted so badly at one point. I'm glad I can provide her with the chance and you can bet I'll be helping her too :D.

The GGG Extra Life stream has been going on and it’s been a lot of fun!

I just found someones post on the long distance subreddit that’s been rather encouraging, it’s kind of lifted my mood about it all.

Today has been relaxing, but Rachyrock and I took on a Delve boss, the first one we’ve found, and managed to defeat it. It was strange, we don’t really know how we did it, but we did it, and now we’ve completed some challenges. All in all, it was a lot of fun, but that was very intense.

I got my hair cut today and now I look far neater.

Nothing else to really share. Have an excellent day! You’re all my favourites!